Tom and Charlie,
Actually, the intended purpose of the E5 paint scheme is discussed in Burlington Bulletin #10 on Q's E units, issued in 1983. In that article on page 6, the author, Jim Sandrin, notes that the striping and the imitation grills were intended to simulate the appearance of the earlier shovel nose locomotives, the last of which, no. 9908, was built one year earlier in1939. Even as no. 9908 was being delivered, the Q was testing EMC's E3 demonstrator no. 822. By the way, the grills and the nose stripes on the E5s were actually painted on separate pieces of metal and mounted with screws. Examination of early E5 photos clearly shows that feature.
As for the blackbird paint scheme, keep in mind that it first appeared during WWII. Previous switchers, both EMC and Baldwin, were delivered in solid black. The GP7s didn't show up until 1949 or 1950. The beginning of the blackbird scheme was discussed in an earlier thread.
Bill Barber Gravois Mills, MO
Sat Aug 9, 2014 12:00 pm (PDT) . Posted by:Tom-
This rendering certainly fills in the evolution of the Passenger Unit Scheme and your hypothesis has to be correct.
The CB&Q E7s were briefly to have continued to be named (anyone have correspondence on that??!!!) and one was even painted up in Simulated Stainless Steel striping…but the car washers soon proved that to be not practical.
The history may be continuous for all the Q paint schemes. The horizontal stripes evoking the Shovelnose windows may have been the inspiration for the switcher and then hood unit “Blackbird” scheme…..a study of EMD styling department schemes would indicate if the E5 scheme came before the nose stirpes became common on NW2s). The stripes and nose stripe edging on the switcher scheme were no doubt inspired by the Burlington herald…..something about all the flat surfaces of a diesel made all-black paint of steam locomotives or the Gas Electric green scheme or the Gas Electric green scheme look really bare some color had to be added. Was the gray reflecting the graphite of steam engines??
The influence of the Shovelnoses on the design of the E unit and later F unit “Bulldog” nose is also obvious to me…..when you see some of the original Styling Department concepts for production locomotives (think Santa Fe 1A and 1B “Amos and Andy” meet Buick) you can see how lucky EMC / EMD was that Budd entered the railroad business and came up with the Pioneer Zephyr. Some of the proposals were more Buck Rogers-ish and made even the UP M-10000 look good….although it contributed the cab windows and location!!!
Charlie Vlk
This is the first time I recall seeing this photo. I knew the Q originally wanted shovel nose E5's, but had no idea of this proposal.
It also makes it clear to me the what the possible evolution of the E-Unit nose stripes is. It is based on the location of windows below the grills (beside the headlights on the E-units). But instead of the window outlines, or actually painting in windows on the nose (as the photo indicates), you simply put black "shadows" where the dark black (when contrasted with the stainless steel) windows would have been. Since the GP's, SD's, and switchers used nose stripes, make the shadow out of separate horizontal stripes instead of separate block "windows. or single thick black block.
I never put that together before, but the grills, black stripes (where the front windows would have been below the grills), and Burlington Route herald below the front "windows", turn the E-Unit nose into a shovel nose Zephyr. It doesn't hurt that the black used to outline where the dark windows were was also the major corporate color on the Blackbird GP's, SD's, and switchers.
When the Q went from black to Chinese Red they simply changed the stripe colors on the E's to adopt the new red scheme. What the change to red does, though, is isolates the original(?) reason for the nose stripes on the E-units from their link to shovel nose windows. It is only looking back through these photos that for me it all came together and makes sense.
Maybe my hypothesis of the development of the Burlington passenger scheme is incorrect, or maybe I read it somewhere before and am just recalling bits and pieces now, but to me this makes sense as the evolution of the passenger scheme.
Does this make sense to anyone else? Has this been written up before or confirmed before?
Tom Mack
I've been told that after the Q canceled the "Shovel Nose" E-5 Units (I have correspondence from the Q and EMD thanks to Mike Spoor) they proposed this look. Fortunately (for our stomachs) they went with the black nose stripes. I can't absolutely verify this, but that's what I heard.
__._,_.___
Posted by: William Barber <clipperw@gmail.com>
![]()
__,_._,___
|